Thread: How to convince your spouse/partner/whatever to become a prepper

Originally Posted by knuckle Head

I though i would revive a couple these forums, I was wandering what kind of new input people had.

We dinner at some friends' house recently. They are a successful upper middle class family. Conversation turned to the economy. They are scared; really scared. Not just of financial meltdown, but of societal collapse. They talked about prepping, defense, and the possibility of setting up a second home in the outback. Apparently several of their equally successful upper middle class friends are thinking the same way. My point is they were not thinking or talking like this a year ago. The mood is changing.

Originally Posted by EZLivin

We dinner at some friends' house recently. They are a successful upper middle class family. Conversation turned to the economy. They are scared; really scared. Not just of financial meltdown, but of societal collapse. They talked about prepping, defense, and the possibility of setting up a second home in the outback. Apparently several of their equally successful upper middle class friends are thinking the same way. My point is they were not thinking or talking like this a year ago. The mood is changing.

I overheard a few people at work talking openly about this same stuff today.

Originally Posted by kenno

A Conspiracy of Counterfeiters - HUMAN EVENTS

"By November 1923, the German currency was worthless, hauled about in wheelbarrows to buy groceries. The middle class had been destroyed. German housewives were prostituting themselves to feed their families."

Might make her think a bit...."

Women are not men, they are the solar oppisite of men. 99% of women do not THINK, they FEEL and proceed on thier emotional reactions. Tell her about the Wiemar Republic and she will go into denial, repeating the same behavior everytime you broach the subject.
The Feminists of the 70's-80's are the worst because they were taught to FEEL that They were just like Men and many still believe it, even though nothing in thier lives has ever supported this Feeling, they marry non-men and then blame mankind because they are stuck with a non-male. Most of those women still have a Kerry Edwards sticker on thier bumper.
Trying to make a woman see common sense is a losing proposition.
Tell your woman that you have two hobbys; collecting food, medicine, clothing, shelter and security is the first hobby.
The second hobby is drinking yourself into stupor and losing your job.
She gets to pick which hobby you should persue.
She may FEEL angry at you but she will be forced to make the correct decision and FEEL empowered that she did. Of course it will give her several months of "Talking Points" to discuss with her friends so never tell her that you have already made preps. OPSEC is a different subject.
This may take several years/decades to sink in past her FEELINGS but she will eventually stop pouting about it

You may be right but if you are Darwin will win out in the end. I have found a saying that pretty much sums up how I feel about trying to get people to understand. "Never give advice, wise men don't need it and fools won't heed it". If there isn't enough information out there that will convince people then those people will just have to learn the hard way.

jj

"Never give advice, wise men don't need it and fools won't heed it" - great quote! Goes along with "let those who wish to remain ignorant, be ignorant." (Jordan Maxwell) Also - "When people have nothing, and they have nothing to lose, they lose it." (Gerald Celente)

My experience has been that only about 1 in 50 people can handle real truth on a broad scale. Almost everyone drags along one form of delusion or another, like a ball and chain.

The subject of the economy seems to be one of the very few that you can discuss openly in public without risk of condemnation and persecution in this free country of ours.

We are at the point now when it is time to look out for numero uno. Use the knowledge you have gained to prepare for what is coming; a collapse that will make the Great Depression look like a bad day.

If you are the type of person that feels the need to preach truth about such matters to family and friends remember that people will believe anything that brings them comfort (only). So, instead of saying 'millions of people are going to starve to death, have their savings wiped out overnight, etc" say "here is how you can prepare for bad times ahead so while most people are suffering very badly you can continue on with some level of comfort .... you can preserve your wealth ... have food to eat ... defend yourself .... here is how ....."

DELUSION - Believing falsities/lies (that all will be ok, the economy will be fine) despite indisputable facts to the contrary (hundreds - turn off the corp TV and learn). DELUSION mixed in with the Normalcy Bias will kill people off like the plague.

Originally Posted by Decker

I overheard a few people at work talking openly about this same stuff today.

I'm curious; was it the "normal" people or the "weird" ones? Open conversations in public, Costco selling storable food, "normal" friends opening up to us and sharing severe concerns are all indicators to me that we are entering the next phase in public awareness.

Originally Posted by EZLivin

I'm curious; was it the "normal" people for the "weird" ones? Open conversations in public, Costco selling storable food, "normal" friends opening up to us and sharing severe concerns are all indicators to me that we are entering the next phase in public awareness.

Well the were two different conversations. One yesterday and one today. Yesterday I wasn't surprised to see one of the guys talking about it. But today was surprising. Does make me wonder if the pot if starting to boil.

Gerald Celente always adds cheer to my day:
"If you live in Greece, you’re in a depression; if you live in Spain, you’re in a depression; if you live in Portugal or Ireland, you’re in a depression,” Celente said. “If you live in Lithuania, you’re running to the bank to get your money out of the bank as the bank runs go on. It’s a depression. Hungary, there’s a depression, and much of Eastern Europe, Romania, Bulgaria. And there are a lot of depressions going on [already]." It will eventually happen here. Prepare for it.

Start small, at the level where your preparations are an acceptable quirk. Don't go beyond evoking the occasional eye roll. I started years ago on trips to Costco. Conversations would go something like this:

Wife: We already have two cases of canned corn and a case of stewed tomatoes.
Me: Eh. You never know.
Wife: Sigh

Wife: What? It'll take us three years to get through fifty pounds of rice.
Me: Yup. I sure hope so.
Wife: Eyeroll.

Wife: Good God. Where are you going to put 25 pounds of sugar and 50 pounds of beans?
Me: In the food-grade bins I picked up.
Wife: Bins? Plural?
Me: Yeah. I was thinking about it. We needed some place to put the 50 pounds of rice.
Wife: Sigh.

Now, I'm not anywhere close to where I want to be, but there's been plenty of progress. When we moved a few years ago, there was a storage space under the eaves with a door leading to it. I claimed it as mine. Who wants a glorified, unfurnished crawl space? She asked if we should call it the, "man cave." I said "SHTF room is probably more like it." To this day, everyone in the family refers to it as the "SHTF room."

She now is more understanding when I stash away freeze-dried foods, though she thought it was pretty silly. I suggested eating some of them. You know, they're not half-bad, she says. I remind her that it's there whenever we need it and that could mean one or both of us losing our jobs, not necessarily because Hood has blown its top or because Western Washington County has been the target of a dirty bomb. She's comfortable with that.

I took her out for her first real shooting session around Christmas. Turns out she *loves* it and is quite the natural, too. Afterward, I mentioned that we had gone through about a thousand rounds of .22 LR in a couple of sittings. Now the notion of a thousand rounds has more meaning, because it's not some scary, ephemeral number of apocalyptic proportions, it literally represents a few hours at the range.

The notion of looking into "recreational" land that has more value than pure recreation makes sense and we can talk about that openly and plan for it.

She no longer looks at me funny when I buy a couple extra gallons of white gas when it's on sale. Or rotate the big bottle of ibuprofen out the emergency kit when we get a new one for household use. Or pick up two or three hand-crank LED flashlights. Or why there's an emergency radio on constant charge on my side of the bed next to the two-way radios. Or when I walk up to the cart in Fred Meyer with a bag of 100 food-warming candles. Or when we need a new campstove and I suggest paying extra for a dual-fuel stove because it takes unleaded when necessary. She get's the point.

It's a process and it's still under way. And I still have work to do on my part.

Q: How to get your wife to prep?

A: Ask her how long can she go without tampons?